John Terry has never been one to hide his emotions and his reaction to Ollie Watkins’ goal against Arsenal showed exactly how much beating Arteta’s side meant to Aston Villa.
With just 74 seconds at the Villa Park, Cedric Soares underhit a pass to Gabriel and Bertrand Traore took advantage of the mistake to find Watkins in the box.
It was Arsenal’s tenth defeat of the Premier League season – the same number of losses they suffered across the whole of last campaign – and Arteta cut a frustrated figure as Villa wildly celebrated at full-time.
The match could be Terry’s last as Dean Smith’s assistant, with Bournemouth reportedly lining up the ex-England skipper to be their next head coach.
John Terry had a record of 11 wins, nine draws and only six defeats for Chelsea against Arsenal and he was delighted getting one over the gunners again.
‘What a win & what a performance. Think I was happy with that one,’ Terry posted on Instagram with a video clip of him celebrating Watkins’ winner.
It’s the first time Aston Villa have completed the double over the gunners since the Premier League’s inception back in 1992 and Smith was full praise for his players after the final whistle.
- Solskjaer reveals Man Utd’s transfer plans & drops Pogba new contract hint
- ‘He didn’t listen’ – Tuchel trolls Werner for ignoring instructions
‘These players like to make history, as we’ve seen over the last couple of years,’ the Villa manager told BBC Sport.
‘It was a hardworking performance and I thought we got away from that on Wednesday. People talking about us being a good team, you’ve still got to work hard and work hard for each other.
‘We’ve got the quality to score goals in this team as people have seen but that was more like us. ‘It was a really dogged display against a really good offensive team.’
Smith added: ‘We wanted to play with an intensity today and we started with a really good intensity.
‘We charged down those forward balls from Arsenal and pounced on errors and Bertrand’s done really well, pulled the ball back and Ollie has done the rest.
‘He’s now in double figures in the Premier League after 21 games which is fantastic for him but fantastic for the team as well.’
